Reported articles
"How Some Women Are Remaking the Workplace to Better Suit Their Lives." The New York Times. September 10, 2021.
After nearly two years of the coronavirus pandemic, one thing is clear: Women are setting their own physical, emotional and cultural boundaries between work and life.
"This Tiny Fishing Town Was Poisoned By a Coal Plant. The Government Is Trying to Replace it With a Mine." VICE World News. March 25, 2021.
People in Senegal protested a coal plant financed by the African Development Bank and others for years. Now, a Turkish mining and steel complex threatens to undo their work.
Satya Yoga, the nation's first yoga teacher training program for people of color, is trying to change who's leading yoga classes—which will also affect who participates
"L.A.’s independent bookstores reckon with diversity (or the lack of it)." LA Times. July 16, 2020. (Also in print)
Reparations Club founder Jazzi McGilbert argues that stores don’t just respond to what’s selling; they drive it. 'To the idea that books by people of color don’t sell, I would ask [the store], are you putting these books at the front? How are you engaging with people who might be interested in these books and maybe assume you don’t carry them because, traditionally, you haven’t?'
"As food insecurity soars in north Denver, a Latina-led rapid response team is supporting the city’s most vulnerable families." The Counter. July 20, 2020.
In this part of the city, some residents increasingly fear hunger and deportation. But promotoras—a type of community health worker active in Latinx communities for decades—can help in places that other social services fail to reach.
Selected essays
Hamade often told us the fighting had its own logic, a rhythm invisible to outsiders. So, I kept hoping I’d adapt, become used to the cadence of attacks I wasn’t directly exposed to, but that still shaped my days and nights. I just had to wait, be patient. Let time normalize the unthinkable.
Estrangement has been an ever-shifting constellation of regrets and loyalties and, yes, joy.
This was the animal market of Lodwar, a daily event that had brought together livestock owners and buyers for generations. Life moved to old rhythms here in Turkana, Kenya’s most northwesterly region and among its most arid. But that was starting to change, which was why I had come.
"Dimanche à Bamako." The Believer. August 27, 2020.
At night, I’d wake to a breeze carrying snippets of 'Gnidjougouya,' Mahamdou’s favorite track, and fall back asleep, lulled by the song’s slow strumming, the women chanting hypnotically. If home is the place where you sleep best, then home for me is Bamako, Amadou & Mariam slipping into my dreams.
"Searching for Rani." Indiana Review. Issue, 42.2. (Also in print)
Could they read my shoulders—coiled, vigilant? A young woman traveling alone. Indian, but not; Tamil, but not. All this to visit the home of a woman two centuries dead. It was foolish; I knew that. But I was going to find out what I didn’t know.
"Reasons I will wed Plantain." The Offing. May 26, 2020.
This I know for sure: you will nourish me. Just one of you has 218 calories and 57 grams of carbohydrates. Low in sugar, high in potassium. A woman needs a fruit like you.
"Pulling a Geographic." The Colorado Review. Issue 47.1. Spring 2020.
Only the memory of her silhouette remained, convex at the back with another life, pitching a gossamer parabola into the bleak waters.
"Room Service Economics: Seven Principles." Bat City Review. Issue 16. 2020. ("Notable" in Best American Essays 2021)
On our second day, cool and clear enough to see the white peaks of the Rockies in the distance—a world away from Chennai’s sticky overcast heat—I turn ten. To celebrate: carrot cake, cream cheese frosting, a single candle.
"To the Driver in Uganda who was not Godfrey." Off Assignment. July 11, 2019. (included in "Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us," an anthology from Algonquin that you can order here.)
Our 'family' must have looked odd: J and his mum, milky white. Me, Indian. You, Ugandan. From the beginning, we were a strange galaxy in that car: planets orbiting each other but always worlds apart.
"What Mani Ratnam’s Films Meant to Me and the Women of the Sri Lankan Civil War." Catapult. Feb 21, 2019.
In Jaffna, I saw a house with the roof and windows missing, a giant banyan tree growing in its center, its roots sprouting out through the walls. There was no more separating tree and home, no extracting what stood before the war from what came after.
"Hiking Cormac McCarthy’s Western Wilderness During an Immigration Crisis." Literary Hub. May 28, 2019. (Voted a LitHub staff pick for May 2019)
Like the mango pickle I ate straight from the jar, I gobbled down the book’s images of the American southwest: the 'vast world of sand and scrub,' plains of pumice, wagons and mules, blood-red skies, lizards with 'leather chins flat to the cooling rocks.' It was like nothing I’d imagined, let alone seen.
"Pro-Choice Stories: New World Economics." Jellyfish Review. May 30, 2019. (Nominated for a Pushcart Prize)
'Every child is a blessing, and we want more of those for our women,' she says. Her eyes seem to burn amber, concentrating the heat of the desert around us
"Steps to Becoming Fine: As Lived By My Mother." Hippocampus. January 8, 2019. (Nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize)
When the children come, first a boy, then a girl, name the girl after the Sanskrit word for ‘protection’ so every time you call her becomes a prayer.
"The Average Person in Kampala Knows A Lot About the Canadian Prairies." Africa Is A Country. 2015.
Ugandans today are confronted by a cultural and political paradigm which pushes a preference for Western lives and lifestyles from multiple angles.
"Bone Memories." The Threepenny Review. Issue 156, Winter 2019. (Print only, "Notable" in Best American Essays 2020)
Opinion & Commentary
This sort of confidence—bordering on hubris—is not unusual for social enterprises: in fact, it’s at the core of most foreign-owned social enterprises operating in the developing world. What else could explain founding a company in a place you don’t know and whose language you don’t speak, with the belief that you could not only solve that society’s social and economic ills, but also turn a profit while doing so?
"We keep fleeing wildfires. Soon, there may be nowhere left that’s safe." The Washington Post. September 11, 2020.
My partner started coughing again, using his inhaler. I watched him, afraid and in disbelief that we had driven 1,300 miles just to find ourselves ensnared in the same danger.
"Overcoming winter's alienation." High Country News. March 4, 2020. (Also in print)
Before I ever experienced winter, I wanted to love it.
"Writing About Binyavanga Wainaina." Los Angeles Review of Books. June 11, 2019.
There is no writing 'about' a place — even your own home — worth doing if it comes easily.
Immediately, I was hooked: the searing uphill climbs, the adrenaline of hurtling downhill. There was no time for self-consciousness, no opportunity for other trail-users to ask, 'Where are you from?'
Interviews
“The revenge of Big Tech: a Q&A with novelist and reporter Vauhini Vara.” High Country News. May 1, 2022. Web and print.
"A Burmese American Family History That Weaves Legacy, Mythology, and Ghosts: A Conversation with Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint." Electric Literature. Aug 26, 2021. Web.
"I Spent Much of My Career Listening to White Folks Complain About Africa and Africans': an interview with Stephanie Kimou." GEN Mag. Sept 1, 2020. Web.
"Leslie Jamison is Hauling out her Emotional Baggage." Electric Literature. September 23, 2019. Web.
"What the World Demands of You: The Millions interviews Margo Jefferson." The Millions. September 26, 2018. Web.
"Chigozie Obioma Wants to Write a 'Paradise Lost' for the Igbo People." Electric Literature. January 8. 2019. Web.
"A Burmese American Family History That Weaves Legacy, Mythology, and Ghosts: A Conversation with Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint." Electric Literature. Aug 26, 2021. Web.
"I Spent Much of My Career Listening to White Folks Complain About Africa and Africans': an interview with Stephanie Kimou." GEN Mag. Sept 1, 2020. Web.
"Leslie Jamison is Hauling out her Emotional Baggage." Electric Literature. September 23, 2019. Web.
"What the World Demands of You: The Millions interviews Margo Jefferson." The Millions. September 26, 2018. Web.
"Chigozie Obioma Wants to Write a 'Paradise Lost' for the Igbo People." Electric Literature. January 8. 2019. Web.